The stars are out this weekend in Los Angeles. One former Oregon star, Fred Jones, came to Friday's practice at USC's Galen Center and shared some thoughts with the Ducks, who are coming off a 64-54 loss to UCLA.

The message: Play hard and like it.

Oregon coach Dana Altman wasn't thrilled with his team's execution or, in a few cases, its mindset as the Ducks made the game a bit too easy for the Bruins in the second half Thursday night.

There were some bad fouls (UCLA shot 20 free throws to Oregon's 10, although the officiating was hardly slanted) that disrupted the Ducks' rotations - especially by Johnathan Loyd and E.J. Singler.

Tyrone Nared, a big key to the team's recent success, did not play well.

"He just didn’t get off to a good start and never got it corrected,'' Altman said.

Add to that Jeremy Jacob's continued iffiness, and it's easy to see why Oregon got beat so badly (23-10) on the boards in the second half.

"I think when we have guys playing too many minutes, it hurts our rebounding,'' Altman said. "It takes a lot of energy. Part of rebounding is you just have to go after balls you don’t think you’re going to get. You stop going after those, and you don’t get the tips and you don’t get the bounces.''

Altman said he's not sure whether Jacob will play against USC (13-11, 5-6 Pac-10), and if he does, he won't play much. Oregon (12-12, 5-7) also might make a change at the point, where Malcolm Armstead continues to play well off the bench.

In his last five games, Armstead is averaging 8.4 points, 5.0 assists, 2. 0 turnovers and 3.0 steals.